I came, I saw, I want to go home and rethink my life

If there was one thing that this summer taught me (in very violent, non-subtle shots to the junk), it's that there's a lot I have to do to be a better person.  Before I get too deep into the shredding of my soul, allow me to say that this isn't going to be another one of those posts where I slam my fists on the ground as I curse the sky because of my ill-begotten misfortune.  That's tomorrows post.

No, this is a post that (I hope) is one of hope.  Or, rather, the part of the show where I gently pick up the pieces of whatever remains, limp back to square one, and HEY!  WHO USED UP ALL THE GLUE????

There have been many things about me (behavior-wise) that have needed to change for...well, for a long time.  And not just your every-January-1st-type of changes.  I'm talking changes that last.  Change that is actually change.  So naturally, I've made some "New Years" resolutions.  But these aren't your grandparents New Years resolutions- these are like, New Years resolutions on HGH.  Resolutions that are chock full of vitamins, nutrients, testosterone, and electrolytes.  Electrolytes!  In short, resolutions with resolve.

My thought is this- New Years resolutions don't often take because, in addition to being driven primarily by a singular calendar date (and the post-holiday guilt), there's often (in my experience, anyways) no real light at the end of the tunnel.  What I mean is that you set your resolutions and unless you're meticulously organized (like I'm not), you probably just throw out some goals with good intentions and then a few months later, with no finish line in sight...you give up.  You start eating like an elephant again.  You light up one more time.  You realize that you can't possibly sustain waking up at 5 a.m. to go to the gym forever. 

That's why I'm doing it a little different.  That's why I'm borrowing from the idea of the fiscal year (or as I'm calling it- Physcal year.  Clever, no?), which is more flexible and arbitrary (in my case, September 1st to August 31st).  Plus, the real draw of the Physcal year set-up is the idea of quarters (three-month increments of analysis).  Oh sure, you can take a calendar year and make it into quarters as well.  But I find that fiscal years seem better suited for that. 

In a nutshell, then, I've basically just tried a poor attempt to trick my mind into making some lifestyle changes and justified it by saying that I'll be evaluating my progress in three month increments.  Sounds reasonableish.  But what sort of changes are we talking about here?

First off, I should just throw this out there- I'm a big dude.  Big, as in, I weight too much.  I'm probably packing a good 80-100 pounds more than my frame was built for.  But this isn't about that.  That is, my lifestyle change is not about losing weight.  It's about just what I said it is- a lifestyle change. However, if I can do this- grab ahold of the vision, put in the effort, and make myself move forward, then the weight loss will happen.  I'll feel better about myself- not just how I look, but how I feel.  

This whole train of thought has a few different genesisess (um, what's the plural on that?).  Obviously the whole 'I hate feeling/looking fat' thing.  There's my buddy Jeff, who implemented a similar deal in his own life and has lost over 50 lbs.  Then there's my wife, who took a healthy-living class on-line this summer, which got me thinking about my own health and mortality and stuff.  Top it off with a summer of basically holding the couch down and falling short of everything I tried to achieve, and presto!  The seeds for the revolution are planted.

And so, out of those seeds was born this possibly-convoluted-perhaps-too-ambitious "plan" (if you can call it that) to recreate Jason Parks.  Basically I came up with some areas that I would like to see change in.  Then I decided to whittle the list down to just a few things (at least in the beginning; the others I'm pushing off until I can demonstrate some sustained success).  Here is the first three things I want to take control of in my life:

1. Walk 1 mile per day/4 times per week.  Any time I attempt to exert myself physically, it's blatantly obvious that I'm in terrible shape.  Now I'd love to be running- wait a second...let me rephrase that- I want to get to a place where I'd love to be running, but I've tried to start up with that before and just got discouraged.  So my thought is that walking can have many similar positive results (and even more positive in some ways) without the exertion level.  After all, I can build up to the whole 'running' thing, but doing something is much, much better than doing nothing.
2. Seconds 2X per week.  More than the exercise, the biggest reason I'm overweight is that I lack simple impulse control when it comes to food.  I'm a grown man.  I generally know what my body wants.  If my body is tired, I take a nap.  If my body needs to eliminate waste, I do it.  Like a boss.  If my body is about to burst because of all the food I've been shoving down my piehole, I shove more food down my piehole.  Which, oops, is not what you're supposed to do.  The frustrating thing is that I know I'm not doing it because I'm hungry- I'm doing it because that food is so doggone good!  So while eventually I want to be able to limit myself to just what my body tells me it wants, in the beginning I am going to allow myself some room to get used to the idea of cutting myself off.
3. 40 minutes per day on the Internet.   Admittedly this will be the hardest one to implement.  Ever since I got my first lap-top with WiFi, me and my computer have been attached at the...well, lap.  And admittedly, it hasn't all been bad.  I've read some things, wrote some things, watched some things, and listened to some things.  But lately (and by 'lately', I mean 'a lot this summer') I found myself cycling through the same mind-numbing routine of the same 4 or 5 websites, not really staying long at any of them, basically just refreshing them to see that nothing new had been posted in the last five seconds.  Clearly, I have an unhealthy attachment to my computer, and a need to get back to "uploading" more quality information into my brain so that I can put out more quality blogs.  Which, really, is what it's all about for me.

Bringing it back to the fiscality of this project, I plan to keep weekly data on how I'm doing with my goals, and then, at the end of each 'quarter' provide an assessment, see how I'm doing, and make any necessary adjustments.  If I am able to make all of my goals in a quarter, a special treat will be provided- whether it be a movie, book, video game, Heroclix figure, going out to a favorite restaurant (particulars to be worked out).

Some things I'd like to look at adding to the list more long term are:
Soda pop 2X per week (and eventually cutting it out)
Pushups/Situps 3X per week (with the longer term goal of getting a gym membership and really working on this bod)
Desert 2X per week (which isn't a bad number...maybe down to once a week)
Read one book per month (at least)


One of the other reasons I have found New Years resolutions to fall short is the lack of perspective.  When you change something to treat a symptom (i.e., weight loss) and the weight isn't getting lost very quickly, discouragement can set in and despair can take over.  So rather than sprint to where I'd like to be as a person, I'm approaching this as a marathon.  I want to cultivate a self-sustaining healthy lifestyle, where I can do these things without thinking about them, much like I can drift through my days now without putting much (if any) thought into the destruction I am wreaking upon myself.  It'll be a long, hard journey- but hey, that's life.  And I've been a death-stick dealer for too long.  It's time to start living.